Little Puffs of Steam
by Rhianwen
Summary: Even now that she’s found her longabsent muse again, they probably won’t do this often anymore. Not exactly like this. But there are always things to take the edge off. Slight NeneneMaggie, slight YomikoNenene, slight YomikoNancy, all mostly friendshippy.


Late Night Coffee_  
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_Summary:

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Disclaimer:

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_They used to do this all the time. _

The moonlight streaming through the window to create weird shapes on the tabletop and the floor.

The heavy silence of late at night, when every sound was magnified and made her jump, and she whispered and tried to laugh quietly but wanted to laugh loudly.

The way she was exhausted and ready to drop, and elated and full of energy and ready to accomplish anything, all at once.

She hardly ever wanted to laugh loudly anymore. (_Yell_ loudly, sure, but _laugh? _No.) And only recently began wanting to smile again. And would maybe never again feel like she could accomplish _absolutely anything._

That had been for thirteen, and stupid.

And fourteen, and arrogant.

And fifteen, and stupid and arrogant.

And sixteen and seventeen and eighteen, and idealistic.

When she would stumble downstairs in the middle of the night, after writing herself into a stupor, striving to reach deadlines – both her editor's and her own. She would yawn herself to the kitchen and make tea.

And sometime before the water boiled, she would be greeted by a soft voice and soft eyes behind thick glasses. Soft, but euphoric because she had been reading pages as the author wrote them. She had taken a while to catch up with the train of her friend, her Nenene's thoughts, and was as exhausted as the younger girl was from thinking and writing them.

They would sit together at the table stamped into patterns by moonlight and streetlight falling through the window, and try to be quiet but want to laugh loudly, and feel exhausted, like they could accomplish anything.

While little puffs of thin white steam curled up from the surface of the light amber liquid in their mugs.

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But a lot's happened since then. Especially recently, because it sometimes seemed to Nenene during those four years that nothing happened worth mentioning. But only sometimes, because the rest of the time, she just had _too much sense of humour_ for that. 

But still sometimes.

That was before her three new housemates blustered into her life amid a whirl of paper so painfully familiar that it was almost like losing Yomiko again to hear the three tell her, one by one, that they'd never met the girl in the photo.

Even now that she's found her long-absent muse again, they probably won't do this often anymore. Not exactly like this.

But there are always things to take the edge off.

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Like a tall, quiet girl with dark spiky hair and amazing deep red eyes sitting across from you, sipping carefully from a mug as the moonlight through the window plays over the table and the walls and over her face.

And maybe it's coffee that you're drinking now instead of tea, and little puffs of thin white steam are curling up from the surface of dark rich liquid, and this girl's eyes aren't swimming and her head pounding from hours of poring over _your_ writing.

Maybe she didn't even come in here on her own, and you had to practically drag her from the closet she insists she likes to sleep in more than anywhere else.

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_On the way to the kitchen to fill this burning need for the unofficial fifth food group, her eyes skim over, and catch on, a needle-thin line of light escaping from behind the closet door. _

_And unconsciously, the need for coffee is pushed back behind a whim, to pluck whatever book it is that is beginning to slip out of the tall dark-haired girl's hands tonight, mark her place for her, flip off the light, and leave her to sleep. _

_When Nenene opens the closet door, she is met by eyes of a deep and vibrant red, startled and confused just now, and hazy with the beginnings of sleep._

_"Hey," she greets, and both start at this sudden shattering of the thick, heavy silence of the house late at night._

_"Hey," Maggie replies, stifling a yawn._

_"I couldn't sleep. I was just going to go have some coffee."_

_The girl in the closet moves toward the door._

_"Do you want me to make it?"_

_Nenene__, startled, waves off the offer._

_"No, I'll make it. Do you want a cup?" _

_Maggie smiles slightly, and looks like she might be laughing internally about something, although Nenene can't tell; can't get a good look at her eyes in the funny light. Then she sets her book on the top of the nearest stack, and smiles, wider and more comfortably this time, up at the older girl._

_"Okay."_

_"I'll come get you when it's ready."_

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Maybe, by the time you went back to get her, she was so deeply engrossed in another book that you had to almost-yell to make her hear you. 

But that doesn't mean it isn't nice, sharing this late-night silence with someone whose very presence alone seems to offer support. Or that her presence, and her quiet strength and support, doesn't lessen the sting of the thought of that gorgeous blue-haired woman who's probably the one drinking that late-night tea with your friend now.

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_"I know what you're thinking," Nenene announces quietly with a tiny grin, blowing gently on the dark, steaming liquid in her mug to cool it._

_Maggie, in the process of adding the right amount of cream – not too much, but not too little either – looks up at the girl across the table from her, and blinks._

_"Uh…you do?"_

_Nenene's__ grin expands from **tiny**__to_ _merely **small**._

_"Yeah.__ You're thinking, 'it's stupid to drink coffee because you can't sleep'."_

_"I wasn't thinking that," Maggie protests, surprised. She looks thoughtfully into her coffee cup for a moment, watching the wisps of steam, and then looks up again at Nenene. "Sometimes coffee makes me sleepy."_

_Nenene__ nods, her eyes softer than she knows. She knows this about Maggie – how the morning cup of coffee that wakes her up when nothing else can, might just sap this tall girl with her smile that is difficult to earn but definitely worth it, of her energy for a good half a day. _

_And when it occurs to her that there are a lot of things like this, little things that are really what's important when you think about it, that she knows about Maggie, she doesn't **almost drop her coffee cup in surprise**, but smiles gently over the knowledge. _

_She doesn't think she knows all these kinds of things about Michelle and Anita; or maybe it's only that Maggie speaks up so seldom that the few things you can learn about her seem very significant, and very precious._

_She knows Maggie's favourite month; knows that she loves being awake before anyone in the house when things are still quiet – it's kind of a nice thought, even though she herself prefers late night for that. _

_It also doesn't surprise her when she realizes that somewhere along the way, she grew to really **like** the fact that the house is only quiet late at night or early morning – or any time both Michelle and Anita are both reading and thus silent._

_But when she thinks that she would almost rather have things stay like they are now, with Michelle and Maggie and Anita with her and Junior and Nancy with Yomiko – because things can never go back to how they **were**, and she doesn't know if she'd want that anyway – she nearly **does** drop her coffee cup in surprise._

_Maggie looks up, startled by the sudden flurry of motion._

_"Are you okay?"_

_Nenene's__ eyes flicker from the little pool of coffee spilt on the tabletop, to Maggie's concerned gaze._

_"Yeah, I'm fine."_

_"Okay. You just kind of looked like you had an epiphany and ate something really bad at the same time."_

_Nenene__ laughs softly at this. And almost before she knows it, she is struck with the distantly familiar urge to laugh loudly._

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So maybe, even when it seems like everything's changed, some things stay the same.

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_'And even though you might give up a lot when things change,' she thinks with a bittersweet smile at the girl across the table from her, you'd give up a lot by having them stay the same forever, too._

___She smiles again at Maggie, a rare, unrestrained smile that doesn't even try to stay a little cynical. Maggie, sensing something unusual in the smile, blushes brightly in the darkness, but nevertheless smiles back._

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___And little puffs of steam curl up from the surface of two coffee cups._

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_End Notes: Aright; just to explain partly in effort to get it clear in my own mind, the italicized sections are kind of the scene itself, as opposed to Nenene's thoughts about the scene. Or something like that. Well, I hope it all makes sense some way or another. :)

Anyway, let me know what you thought! Y-y'know, if you want to. :)


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